Corel's first attempt at an entry-level media suite shows promise, but some limitations and instability point to giving it a pass for now.

With Digital Studio 2010 ($99 direct), Corel aims to make it a snap to perfect and share your digital photos and videos. Digital Studio handles the whole process, from capturing or importing to editing, burning to disc, and uploading to the Web. The software can handily convert and transfer video to your PSP, iPod, or other handheld, and its support for AVCHD will be welcomed by owners of the latest camcorders or Blu-ray players. But this first version just doesn't feel finished, and some processes could be better implemented.

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Setup
I tested the software on both Vista and XP desktops and laptops. The install places four icons on your desktop, one for each of the included apps: PaintShop Photo Express, a simplified version of Paint Shop Pro Photo; VideoStudio Express, the slimmed-down incarnation of VideoStudio Pro; DVD Factory, for burning discs; and WinDVD, for playing them. Also installed is Corel Instant Viewer, which displays images you click on from Explorer, but there's little reason to use it instead of the native Windows Photo Viewer.

The suite also installs a desktop gadget that lets you launch each of the four main apps from a single place. (I'd opt for ditching the separate icons and just leave the gadget on your desktop.) Because it's a standard Windows gadget, it can live in Vista's Sidebar or anywhere on the desktop in Windows 7, and it loads at startup. Unfortunately, the gadget is pretty big and no settings options let you customize its size or what it offers.

The four apps have a consistent, simple interface, so you won't be jarred as you move between them, as sometimes happens when one package unites a number of disparate apps (such as Roxio). Each app has "heads-up" graphical dialogs that pop down when you hover the mouse pointer over menu items at the top.

Photo Editing
You can automatically import images when you plug in your camera or media card, or from within the app (where you can also import from your PC, webcam, scanner, or mobile phone), but you can't upload, rotate, share, or group together the pictures during the import, as you can in Picasa 3.5. Nor can you automatically delete pictures once the importing is finished, as you can in most photo organizers. At least the program lets you ignore duplicates you've already imported.

The photo tools are pretty standard. PaintShop groups imported photos by date, and you can organize them further by dragging them into albums you create. You can easily add a caption to a picture, or straighten, crop, print, or e-mail it. Changes are undoable, and you can revert to the original image at any time. The Quick Fix tool seemed to just bump up the brightness and contrast in most pictures, which often didn't improve them much. The red-eye remover works quite well, but I prefer Picasa's one-click tool for finding and fixing all eyes in the photo. The Makeover tool not only fixes blemishes quite tolerably, but can also whiten teeth and even give your subjects a suntan! (On one pink-complected friend it looked more like sunburn, however.)

Other effects, such as applying a sepia tone or soft focus, torn paperlike edges, and artistic frames are easy to add to images, as are Picture Tubes, shapes and figures such as animals you can sprinkle onto your picture. Unlike Picasa and iPhoto, there's no face tagging or geotagging, or a panorama-stitching tool for assembling wide landscape shots.

The Share choice at the top of the screen makes it easy to post pictures to Flickr and Facebook, but Picasa handily lets you sync folders between online and desktop. And you can't use this tool to create albums in Flickr as you can in Picasa Web Abums. You can, however, turn your images into a photo book, greeting card, collage, calendar, or slideshow using easy-to-follow wizards. My only disappointment was that all of Corel's collages are rectilinear, but Picasa and other programs allow a "scattered photos" look.

Slideshows output in either HD or standard-definition video format, and you can add voiceovers or soundtracks using music files on your PC. Slideshows automatically include a pleasing pan-and-zoom effect.

Printing options include outside photo finishing, but it's a Corel-chosen serviceyou don't get to choose among 16 suppliers as Picasa does, including local chains where you can pick up the photos.Next: Video Editing

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About the Author

Michael Muchmore is PC Magazine's lead analyst for software and web applications. A native New Yorker, he has at various times headed up PC Magazine's coverage of Web development, enterprise software, and display technologies. Michael cowrote one of the first overviews of web services for a general audience. Before that he worked on PC Magazine's S... See Full Bio

Corel Digital Studio 2010

Corel Digital Studio 2010

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